Bo Peep
by tielan
Summary: There are days when Elizabeth thinks in nursery rhymes.


**Bo Peep**

There are days when Elizabeth thinks in nursery rhymes.

-

_Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep..._

Sheep is not the way anyone would ever describe Colonel Sheppard and his team. She's clashed with John and Rodney often enough and they're rather more goats than sheep - intelligent, stubborn, and with a tendency to try to butt their way through a bad situation. And Teyla and Ronon are more like the proverbial wolves in sheep's clothing - unobtrusive background until they bring out the weapons - and not just the guns, either.

"Anything from Colonel Sheppard's team yet?"

Sergeant Miller looks up from his terminal, surprised. "Uh, no, ma'am. Not yet."

She feels a moment of irritation with the quartet. Two hours overdue, and while that's not unusual for them, Elizabeth has a feeling that this is not one of the missions where they'll troop back through the gate, all smiles and amusement, because they got caught up doing something and figured it wouldn't matter if they were six hours late.

This morning, she spotted another grey hair on her head and knows that it's because of _that_ team. Not Major Lorne's team, not Major Fielding's team, not Lieutenant Ellis' team - John's team, without a doubt.

Not that she wasn't greying before, just that it's gotten so much faster since she took up this post at Atlantis.

--

_And doesn't know where to find them..._

She knows where they last were: P4V-209, making contact with someone Teyla knew or was supposed to know.

They're not there anymore, and Major Lorne has brought back fifty planets that might or might not be where they went. Everyone in Atlantis is working on this - she's pulled everyone off everything else - but there's neither sight nor sound of AR-1.

Fifty planets aren't that much, but if she looks at the planets beyond that and the ones beyond those...

Her math isn't fantastic, but even she knows the possibility of finding them is very small.

Lorne and Zelenka are humouring her; she senses glances they exchange when she drops her gaze to the computer screen before her and the weekly report she's typing up to send through to the SGC. Kavanaugh thinks she's letting her feelings override good sense again - although she knows better than to expect his good opinion or give it any value. At lunch today, Kate Heitmeyer suggested that Elizabeth might like to come in and sit down for a while - talk or not talk, as she wants.

It's a drop in a bucket, but she can't let it go.

--

_Leave them alone, and they will come home._

They've exhausted all options for finding John's team. Too many planets, too many addresses, not enough resources, and the possibility of finding them is narrowing. Rapidly.

And Elizabeth's exhausted what small supply of hope she's been living on for the last couple of days.

She's also exhausted any goodwill she might have had among the city-dwellers - particularly the military, who respect John for what he's done but have a very practical bent towards the missing-presumed-dead. 'Wild goose chase' is the nicest thing that's being said about her assignment of resources over the last few days.

Her judgement and decisions probably aren't going to be too badly questioned by the powers on high, but cautionary instincts have been screaming at her for the last thirty-six hours of sending teams out and receiving back their reports.

Elizabeth's trodden too close to the edge; she can feel it.

And sooner or later, she has to trust that they'll find their way back to Atlantis.

--

_Wagging their tails behind them._

Elizabeth's pretty sure that she made a fool of herself running down the stairs to meet them in the gateroom. That's why she's carefully composed when she walks into the dining hall for her first proper meal in days.

John, Teyla, and Rodney are already seated, there's no sign of Ronon about. She gets her tray and contemplates taking it out to another area, but Teyla smiles and glances at the spare space, and John turns around and waves her over.

She's acutely conscious of the people watching as she walks towards the table. But this team's her anchor, her benchmark for 'normal' in Atlantis - possibly because none of them are anywhere near normal.

When she sits down at the next table down, Rodney huffs. "Do I smell or something?"

"No," says Elizabeth archly. "But John does."

Teyla chokes back a laugh, John glares, Rodney smirks, and Elizabeth sits down with her tray of food.

Then Teyla chokes back another one when Ronon appears, seemingly from nowhere, with a glass of multi-coloured Jell-O and plonks himself down in the seat opposite Elizabeth to the chorus of Rodney's outraged exclamation.

"_Must_ be you, Rodney," says John.

Elizabeth glances at Ronon and receives a smirk in response. Maybe he sat with her to be polite, maybe he's doing it to annoy Rodney - it doesn't matter.

Fool or not, she's relieved they're home.

-** fin** -


End file.
